Smith started to speak when a female voice broke in behind the President. Whatever she whispered made the President snort with laughter. Smith heard the chief executive cover the mouthpiece as he whispered back.
"Keep it down, will you?" the President asked. "Okay, Smith, what can you tell me?"
"Who is that?" Smith demanded.
"Oh. Who?" asked the President innocently. A woman giggled somewhere in the nearby background.
"Mr. President, need I caution you again on matters of security? Please ask your wife to leave the room."
"Um, she's not here," the President said, voice almost distant. The giggling again, this time muffled in a pillow.
"I will terminate this call if your wife does not excuse herself," Smith said seriously.
"Okay, okay," the President said. "Honey, you better get out of here. There's some heavy Commander it Chief stuff going on." There was a rustling of sheets, and then the sound of a door clicking shut.
Only when the labored breathing of the President of the United States was the only sound in the room did Smith speak once more.
"Mr. President, we have had this conversation before," Smith said, weary of having to explain yet again the importance of keeping CURE secure. "It is unacceptable for the First Lady to be anywhere near the dedicated line when we are discussing sensitive matters."
The President cleared his throat, embarrassed. "She wasn't. The, um, ball and chain's in California," his hoarse voice said sheepishly. "She's got appointments with a couple of lawyers out there."
"Then who-?" Smith paused. "Oh." It was his turn to clear his throat. Smith rapidly changed the subject. "As you must already know, the U.S.S. Courage fired a cruise missile at South Korea approximately twenty minutes ago."
"Yeah, I just found out," the President said. "South Korea? Are they the ones who like us, or not?"
"They like us, Mr. President," Smith said, his lemony voice weary. "At least they did until today. I have heard that already there are organized protestors in the streets of Seoul demanding the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Korean soil and our ships from their territorial waters."
"Aren't they out a little soon?" the President asked.
"My thinking exactly," Smith replied. "It almost seems as if they knew there was an attack coming."
"Is that possible?"
"Sadly, yes. Our armed forces have been infiltrated by foreign spies in the past. Perhaps most significantly to these events, there was the 1996 incident concerning the South Korean who was a naturalized U.S. citizen. He was a U.S. intelligence officer who was caught passing classified information on to the Republic of Korea."
"You think whoever did this was a buddy of his?"
"I will not speculate one way or the other," Smith said. "It is merely one of the possibilities I am investigating. It could well be an isolated incident. As it stands now, we do not yet know how many were involved in the firing of the Tomahawk. There are reports of deaths aboard the Courage."
"Maybe they were attacked by the Koreans," the President speculated. "They might have been defending themselves."
"Hardly," Smith said. "If my information is accurate, the dead aboard the naval vessel committed suicide."
"Wowee," the President said. "You know, that's part of the reason I despise the military so much. All those guns and rockets and everything. I'd be happier if we could take all that war stuff and dump it in the ocean. Of course, the veep would have my flabby ass if I did. Ecology and all,"
"Yes," Smith said, his voice flat. "In any event, there has been another item from the Koreas that has come across my desk this morning. Nine individuals in the North with tenuous ties to the Central Intelligence Agency were murdered this morning. Their decapitated bodies were discovered near the British embassy a few hours before the missile attack."
"Yuck," the President said. "What's that got to do with anything?"
"Perhaps nothing. However, one of my people recently, er, dispatched nine men in New York whom I later learned were North Korean agents. Their bodies were taken by individuals I have yet to trace who were dressed in the uniforms of New York City police officers. Apparently, they were brought somewhere to be mutilated. Their headless and handless corpses were found on a garbage scow in the East River."
"This is gross as all get-out," the President complained. "Just get to the point."
"It is possible that the murders in North Korea are a retaliation for the decapitated bodies found here. The cruisemissile launch following so closely on the heels of both events could signify a link to some larger scheme."
"Like what?" the President asked.
"I am not certain. But it might interest you to know that the same protestors I told you about earlier are calling for reunification talks to begin with the North."
"Is that bad?"
"Dire is the word I would use. A unified Korea would doubtless favor the political system of the North. If reunification goes as some expect, we would have the first significant Communist expansion in two decades. In addition, we would lose an important strategic ally in the region. As you no doubt are aware, as far as our military is concerned, relations with Japan are not particularly strong at present."
"Really?" the President of the United States asked.
Smith sighed. "I intend to send my people in to the Koreas," he said. "The Masters of Sinanju are undisputed experts of the Korean political scene, and have been since time immemorial. Since it is his homeland, Master Chiun is infinitely suited to dealing with the current tensions."
"Whatever you say, Smith," the President said. He sounded distracted. "I told you to stay out," he whispered hoarsely.
Over the phone, Smith heard a door creak shut. He closed his eyes patiently. "I will keep you apprised of any new developments," he said.
While he was hanging up the phone, he heard the same woman's voice as before. It was obvious now that it was not the First Lady. She was singing "Happy Birthday" in a husky whisper. Smith hung up the receiver as the President of the United States guffawed with delight.
Chapter 20
The plain was endless.
There was sky, but it was washed in blood. Like the atmosphere of a planet in the sphere of a red giant sun.
The red Martian landscape stretched out limitlessly in all directions. At some hazy point in the far-distant horizon, the red of the sky swept over the red of the land, creating a muddied seam of blood.
Man Hyung Sun watched the horizon and smiled.
He had visited this place in his mind before. Many times in the past several days. But he had seen it prior to that. In both daydreams and nightmares when he thought he was going mad.
It was not madness. It was real. And unreal.
This thing had been calling to him for months. It knew of destiny. It knew his future. It had even given him some directions on a subconscious level for almost a year prior to this current cycle of events.
Mike Princippi had known of it. He had encountered the thing in America's West. But he had chosen to ignore the sweet, vaporous song. He had forced the images from his mind and had given away the vessel. It had taken Man Hyung Sun much time to search out the former governor in his mind. The thoughts drawing him to this place had not been clear until very recently. Now they seemed so obvious.
The figure was where it had been. Clothed in a haze of yellow fog, it sat upon the endless flat plain. The head and eyes of a man looked up as Sun approached.
"I am weak," the strange, otherworldly figure lamented when Sun crouched down beside it. Puffs of yellow smoke danced around the ethereal shape like thin clouds scudding across a clear sky.
It was the same complaint as always. Sun smiled comfortingly. "You cannot know true weakness," he assured the figure. "For to be truly weak is to be Man. And you are not Man."